Introduction: In episode 50, I uncover the stories and lasting legacy of the German Lutheran communities in Chicago, profoundly affected by the Eastland Disaster of 1915, exploring their resilience and the event's historical significance.
Key Points:
Lutheran Community’s Role: Highlighting how Lutheran churches served as pivotal social and spiritual support systems for immigrant communities in Chicago.
Understanding Ancestors: Discussing the importance of the “FAN club principle” in comprehending the complex lives of our ancestors.
Personal Connection: Sharing bits and pieces from my Lutheran background.
Exploring History: Exploring how the disaster affected Chicago’s Lutheran community, focusing on personal stories and what's left behind.
Genealogy Tips: Offering insights into the value of Lutheran church records for family history research and recommending genealogical resources.
Stories of Impact: Featuring narratives of two families—The Wiese-Rakow Family and the Rossow Family—affected by the disaster to illustrate the tragedy’s personal and communal impact.
Conclusion: Reflecting on the memory of the Eastland disaster victims and inviting listeners to explore more in future episodes and at the RootsTech event coming up on February 29, 2024.
Introduction: In episode 50, I uncover the stories and lasting legacy of the German Lutheran communities in Chicago, profoundly affected by the Eastland Disaster of 1915, exploring their resilience and the event's historical significance.
Key Points:
Lutheran Community’s Role: Highlighting how Lutheran churches served as pivotal social and spiritual support systems for immigrant communities in Chicago.
Understanding Ancestors: Discussing the importance of the “FAN club principle” in comprehending the complex lives of our ancestors.
Personal Connection: Sharing bits and pieces from my Lutheran background.
Exploring History: Exploring how the disaster affected Chicago’s Lutheran community, focusing on personal stories and what's left behind.
Genealogy Tips: Offering insights into the value of Lutheran church records for family history research and recommending genealogical resources.
Stories of Impact: Featuring narratives of two families—The Wiese-Rakow Family and the Rossow Family—affected by the disaster to illustrate the tragedy’s personal and communal impact.
Conclusion: Reflecting on the memory of the Eastland disaster victims and inviting listeners to explore more in future episodes and at the RootsTech event coming up on February 29, 2024.
Hello, I'm Natalie Zett and welcome to Flower in the River. This podcast, inspired by my book of the same name, explores the 1915 Eastland disaster in Chicago and its enduring impact, particularly on my family's history. We'll explore the intertwining narratives of others impacted by this tragedy as well, and we'll dive into writing and genealogy and uncover the surprising supernatural elements that surface in family history research. Come along with me on this journey of discovery. Hey, this is Natalie, and welcome to Episode 50. Let's write 50 of Flower in the River podcast.
Speaker 1:
Today, as always, there's more to talk about than what we have time for, so I'm going to dive in. It is so important, when attempting to reconstruct the lives of those who have gone before us, to understand the context in which they lived. Face it, our ancestors occupied multiple communities, as we do, depending on where they immigrated, from where they immigrated to where they finally settled. And by applying the fan club principle, that is, by understanding our ancestors' friends, associates and neighbors, that is a way that we can put their lives in context and understand them better, this genealogical principle, this fan club procedure that was created by genealogist Elizabeth Shone Mills, and this has been so valuable to me as I've tried to do this work of reconstructing the world of my ancestors, and now it's time for me to get my two cents into this discussion as well. I want to add that where our ancestors worshiped can also tell us a great deal about their lives. One of the anchors for our immigrant ancestors who settled in Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was their church or synagogue. So I wanted to talk about the Lutheran legacy of the Eastland disaster. If that has been done before, I've not seen it, and it wasn't until doing the research for the Eastland Chronicles that I have been able to see how many people who belong to Lutheran churches worked for Western Electric and, as a result, how many of them were on the Eastland. For many of these people, like my family, that ticket to the picnic proved to be a one-way ticket.
Speaker 1:
Now I do have some personal experience to bring to the table here, big-time personal experience as a cradle Lutheran. Yes, I was baptized Lutheran, I had no say in that, but when I became a teenager, I discovered that I really liked my home church and as a result, I decided that I wanted to go to school where so many of my classmates wanted to go to school, and that was one of the Missouri Synod Junior Colleges called Concordia in Ann Arbor, and then, after being out in the world for a few years, I decided that I wanted to give the Lutheran church a second look again and I moved to St Paul and attended and graduated from Luther Seminary that is an ELCA Seminary Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I wanted to discuss the importance of religion and church and synagogue in the lives of our ancestors and, given my background, I thought it made the most sense to start with the Lutheran church, and I have more than a superficial understanding of what a Lutheran culture might be. I bet a few people are laughing at the phrase Lutheran culture, but think about this If we didn't have some kind of idiosyncratic Lutheran culture, Lake Wobagon of a prairie home companion would not exist and Garrison Keeler would have to find something else to do right. Garrison built a whole career around looking at the Lutherans in Minnesota and creating this fictionalized place called Lake Wobagon, and we've often said we can't believe how well he knows the Lutheran community and also my maternal line. The folks that lived in Chicago and who experienced the Eastland disaster were Lutheran and they by far were not the only Lutherans in Chicago who experienced loss as a result of the Eastland disaster. So for a few minutes now, I'd like you to step back a little bit and use your imagination.
Speaker 1:
Pretend that you're a young dad who immigrated from an area in Prussia which is now modern-day Poland. You brought your family, which includes your wife and your little children, into this strange new city. You came over in 1899, or thereabouts, and since you came over you've been trying to make a life for yourself, your wife and your ever-expanding family. You speak English, but not very well, and while it's been nice to have your own home and a bit of land, you worry because you don't always understand the customs or how business works. You're good with money and you've saved money, but you need to get a new job. But you're in luck. Your sister and her husband have already been here in this city for a couple of years and they help you to get settled in your new home. After all, they're the reason you relocated from Johnstown, pennsylvania, where you initially immigrated. Your sister and her husband said Chicago's good, lots more work here.
Speaker 1:
Later, once you're settled, they take you to the big church that's just down the block from your new home. They introduce you to the pastor, who in turn explains how the church membership works. The pastor understands, because he also immigrated from the same area in Prussia as you did. Indeed, his family's village was about five miles from yours. He literally speaks your language, which is mostly German, with some Polish peppered in, and he introduces you to one of the school teachers who will enroll your oldest daughter, who is nine, into the church school. There she'll have instruction in English and German.
Speaker 1:
You and your family begin attending Sunday services, and after the services you meet a lot of other families just like yours. And again you're in luck. A man who owns a blacksmith's shop just a few miles away heard that you too are a very good blacksmith and you need a job. Well, right now he has more work than he can handle and he will be glad to take you in. The world is looking better to you now. Who knows, maybe this really is the land of opportunity. Soon you meet other relatives at church. You didn't even recognize them because it's been years since you've seen them and they immigrated before you did. They are the children of your oldest sister, who you haven't seen since you immigrated. But they are young adults now and are so happy to be able to get to know you again and to assist your family with the care of your young children. The church called St Mark's or St Marcus Lutheran Church is literally your home away from home. It's your anchor, your community. Within this community. You feel better now, being among your own kind, and slowly all of you are learning to navigate and contribute to life in this place called Chicago.
Speaker 1:
I just described what life probably was like for my great grandparents when they first relocated to Chicago in 1903 and their church was so important to them. Now, to state the obvious, I have no idea what anyone else's internal spiritual path or faith life was like, but I do know that St Mark's, located on 23rd in California Avenue in the area that was known as South Lawn or South Lawndale, now called Little Village, was an essential part of their lives. How do I know this? Well, from conversations from the older relatives who were alive and who remembered this. I also have letters from these relatives and, finally, I have all the church records from this church that talks about how many times one of my family members stood up for another family member when they were married or had children who were baptized or who were confirmed. I'll tell you a little bit more about the area and about St Mark's Lutheran Church. St Mark's began as a mission school in 1884 and eventually they realized that they needed to add a church to that school because of the growth of immigrants and new church members in that area. The church building still stands on 23rd in California. Now a little bit about South Lawndale.
Speaker 1:
South Lawndale, or Little Village, is about five miles southeast of Chicago's bustling loop, embracing its rich cultural tapestry. One is welcomed to Little Village, la Velita, with a majestic arch over 26th Street signaling entry into this now vibrant Mexican and Mexican American heartland, bordered by the Stevenson Freeway and Sir Mac Road, with Western Avenue and Cicero outlining its east-west stretch. South Laundale's origins trace back to post-Great Chicago fire resettlements by German and Czech communities. This neighborhood, historically blue-collar, has witnessed waves of demographic shifts, each contributing its own hue to the local mosaic. Polish people and Germans, and now Hispanic communities have laid roots, drawn by the pull of industrial work opportunities. Although this is well after the Eastland disaster, yet the later part of the 20th century brought with it economic upheaval, to say the least, marked by the shuttering of the international harvester and Western Electric facilities. And those were pivotal employers in the area's industrial landscape. But despite these changes, south Laundale remains a testament to the enduring spirit and evolving identity of its working-class foundation. But back to 1915 and the early part of the 20th century. So my family wasn't the only Lutheran immigrant family trying to make a new life in Chicago during that time. There were a lot of immigrant Lutheran families who settled in Chicago and they were from all over Northern Europe, central Europe and Eastern Europe, and each of these people brought their own flavor of Lutheranism with them. For these immigrants it must have been really strange, for so many of them were used to a different model of Lutheranism Music.
Speaker 1:
As Lutherans came to North America, they faced several significant challenges. One was the transition away from the European model of a state-supported church. The idea of individual freedom of religion is relatively modern. After the Reformation, church and state were still integrated. The difference was that some states remained Roman Catholic while others were now Protestant, and in places where the Lutheran Confession of Faith was embraced, churches became national churches rather than regional branches of the Roman Catholic Church. The pluralism of American denominational context challenged Lutherans who were used to being part of an established church, while more recent denominations like Baptists and United Methodists grew through evangelism. Lutheran church growth was largely the result of new waves of immigration from Germany and Scandinavia.
Speaker 1:
Music, and that was written by theologian Catherine Kleinhans. Oh, but wait a second. You do know what a Lutheran is, right? Well, just in case, let's back it up just for a second Music. So Martin Luther was a seminal figure in religious history, to say the least. His actions and teachings set in motion a transformative movement in Christianity.
Speaker 1:
Born in 1483 in what is now Germany, luther initially pursued a career in law before a life-changing experience led him to become a monk and later a theologian and a professor. As a scholar, luther went deeply into the study of the Bible, which led to his questioning of certain church practices. His scholarly objections were crystallized in his 95 theses, which he posted on the door of the Wittenberg Church in 1517. Now, what in the heck are theses? Wee even the name. Those are propositions for debate, and in this context, it was about debating some of these points that he objected to.
Speaker 1:
This document challenged the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on the nature of penance, the authority of the Pope and the efficacy of indulgences. Luther's 95 theses argued that salvation was by faith alone, a concept that stood in stark contrast to the church's teachings of that era, his translation of the Bible into the language of the people made the scriptures more accessible, encouraging everyday people to seek personal understanding of their faith. Again, despite Luther's intent to reform the Catholic Church from within, his ideas led to his excommunication more than a few death threats too, by the way and the formation of a new branch of Christianity. Lutheranism was established on the principles of the sole authority of Scripture, the belief in salvation by grace through faith and the priesthood of all believers, which affirmed direct access to God for every individual, without the need for ecclesiastical mediation. That's the history, and what a history that is.
Speaker 1:
So about 25 years ago, when I first learned about my family's connection to the Eastland disaster, I visited Bethania Cemetery, which is where my great aunt is buried, as well as a lot of other family members, and at that point I learned that there were just a handful of people who were also buried there, who died on the Eastland. And that actually was not correct, because I learned a little bit later that there are about 12 people in Bethania who died as the result of the Eastland disaster. So back then I figured that well, okay, maybe the Lutheran communities were too small in Chicago, maybe they were not that affected by the Eastland. Back when I started this research 25 years ago, information was not as easily accessible and I didn't realize, in fact, how huge the Lutheran community was in Chicago and still is to an extent. However, as the result of the work that I've done these past couple months for the Eastland Chronicles series, I felt as if this topic, this Lutheran legacy of the Eastland disaster, was picking me as I was researching other people in the last couple of weeks. I found a cemetery called Concordia and now that word might not mean a lot too many, but to a Lutheran, concordia is practically synonymous with Lutheran and I wondered how many Eastland victims were buried at Concordia Cemetery. Concordia Cemetery, which is located in Forest Park, illinois, just outside of Chicago, has approximately 60 people, that's 6-0 people buried there who died on the Eastland. I hesitate at giving exact numbers because I really don't think, based on my research of all of this, that we can ever pinpoint an exact number of people, simply because not everybody died on that day, and indeed I read an article in the Day Book, which is one of the smaller magazines of the time, that a body was found two months later in the river, and they weren't sure who that was or where it came from.
Speaker 1:
Besides my early research, which was kind of limited because I was new to the genealogy game, and also, I have to say this, growing up Lutheran least in the areas that I grew up Cleveland mostly, but I lived in other locations Lutherans were always in the minority. My family ultimately settled in a suburb of Cleveland, a southeast suburb of Cleveland, where there were maybe about 40,000 people, and there were for those 40,000 people about seven Catholic churches. For the rest of us there was one Lutheran church and I think there was one Baptist church. That was it. So wherever I've lived, at least in the Midwest or upper Midwest, catholics have always been in the majority and Lutherans have been in the minority. And well, one exception Minnesota. Yes, indeed, at least for a while, there were more Lutherans than any other religion. That probably has changed though now, and of course there are a lot of Roman Catholics and all sorts of faiths here. But this is one of the strange places where Lutherans, for a while anyway, have dominated.
Speaker 1:
I just assumed that there would not be much of a Lutheran presence in Chicago and that really was not so. I was just looking at the chicagoancestorsorg site that's operated by the Newberry, and they had 384 Lutheran churches and organizations were listed. There may have been more as well, but regardless that's a fairly healthy number. But I'd like to return to Bethania Cemetery for just a few minutes here, because that's where my Aunt Martha is buried and other family members, as well as the other 11 people who died on the Eastland. And even Bethania Protestant Cemetery though it is, it's right next to Resurrection Cemetery, which is Roman Catholic, and both cemeteries are located in Justice, illinois, which is actually a fairly bucolic, rural looking place, but it's not far from Chicago City Center either, so it's quite a beautiful contrast. So Bethania Cemetery was founded around 1894, and its Cemetery Association was comprised of several Chicago congregations, and those congregations include St Mark's Lutheran Church, which is my family's home church. On the 15th of July 1894, the new cemetery could already be consecrated. The first funeral took place on the 22nd of July 1894.
Speaker 1:
Back to Concordia, though. Again, there were about 60 who died on the Eastland and who are buried there, and I can guess that, based on where their final resting places are, that most of them are probably Lutheran, and you're probably wondering what is with that name Concordia, and what does it possibly mean to a Lutheran? There's a lot of answers to that, actually, and I've heard different things throughout the years. But the name Concordia refers to the Book of Concord and, without going into a whole lot of detail, that book contains the major writings of Martin Luther and the Lutheran Church at the time, such as the Augsburg Confession, luther's large catechism and Luther's small catechism, and that's it at a very, very high level. But all Lutherans are not alike, and I'd like to introduce you to the German Lutherans simply because that's the group with whom I am the most acquainted.
Speaker 1:
It makes sense that most associate the Lutheran churches with Germans or Germany or whatever Germany was at that point, because it was a German-Augustinian monk who accidentally started this new religion. And Germans also were a major immigrant group in Chicago during the 19th and early 20th centuries, thank you. They were the largest ethnic group in the city by 1900, so they were for a while in the majority. Mass German immigration was driven by factors like population growth, lack of land, lack of jobs throughout the German Empire at that point in history. Also, today's understanding of Germany is not the same as it was back in the beginning of the 20th century.
Speaker 1:
All of my folks who identified as German were actually from what is now Poland. So when I reviewed my family's records, when I created their family tree, I noticed that in each census the same person might indicate that they were from different locations. So one census record might have them from Germany, the next census record might have them from Russia. The other census record might have them from Prussia. That's for the same person, by the way, that's P-R-U-S-S-I-A, not Russia. That no longer exists and that's a whole other bailiwick of history.
Speaker 1:
But hopefully this very short introduction to the quote-unquote Germans of Chicago, german Lutherans of Chicago, gives a little indication of how it might seem easy on the surface, but it's anything but that when you go into the details of their lives. So Chicago's German population came from diverse regions of Germany and they really can't be lumped into a single category because they are all so different. About two-thirds were working class by 1900, so it makes sense that they were working at places like McCormick's or Western Electric. So Germans were pretty active and they created a thriving ethnic institutional life in Chicago with churches like St Mark's, clubs, businesses, german-language newspapers and entertainment. They formed networks of workers' organizations and unions as well. Differences existed between early pioneers, their American-raised children, 1880s arrivals who kept German ties, and the late 1890s immigrants.
Speaker 1:
Germans encountered criticism, of course, of their language, their drinking culture, those Sunday afternoon beer fests. This sparked political mobilization around ethnic interests like German school instruction, temperance meaning no drinking and Sunday laws. Individual Germans held political offices and influenced parties, but did not unite as a single block. And then, when we get into World War I, that's a whole different thing. And since the Eastland disaster took place in 1915, that's pretty much where I want to linger. But I do want to say that after World War I, things changed dramatically for German communities throughout the United States.
Speaker 1:
Even though I'm zeroing in on the German Lutherans for this episode, I want to acknowledge that there are Norwegian Lutherans, swedish Lutherans, danish Lutherans, lithuanian Lutherans, slovak Lutherans, all kinds of Lutherans who were living in Chicago during that time. And while not all of these communities were directly affected by the Eastland disaster, they knew of the Eastland disaster and most likely they knew somebody who was involved. What I'll do is I'm going to divide this discussion up into several episodes, because each one deserves special focus and special attention, because they might be Lutheran but they're all different. And for the conclusion of this episode, I want to share the stories of two families that were directly affected by the Eastland disaster, and these families are buried in Concordia Cemetery in Forest Park, illinois. And before I even get into that, I want to say something that has really helped, as we say, break down some brick walls.
Speaker 1:
For me, recently, all sorts of Lutheran church records from Missouri Synod Lutheran Church have become available online, and this has been a gold mine for me and probably for a lot of families. There's nothing like being able to look at the real documents, even if they're photocopies of the originals, as opposed to having to read transcriptions and wondering what did somebody leave out, what did they get wrong, etc. Etc. This has nothing to do, by the way, with being religious. It just acknowledges the fact that many of our ancestors, particularly folks who came over during the time period that mine did late 1800s, early 1900s their synagogues, their churches, were so important to them, and the records that you can find in these places or find online can really help your genealogical research. And to that end, I have a book that I would like to recommend for you. There's a book, and it is called how to Find your Family History in US Church Records a genealogist's guide. The authors are Sonny Jane Morton and Harold A Henderson. It has been invaluable to me to have this close at hand when I'm doing this type of research, particularly for the Eastland Chronicles, because, although I know my way around the Lutheran world, there are other churches that come up throughout the course of my Eastland research that I don't know that much about, so having this book has been really useful.
Speaker 1:
Now I want to introduce you to a couple of families who were forever changed at the day of the Eastland disaster. Here's our first introduction Augusta Svanvis. She deserves mentioning because at 65, she was one of the oldest people to have died on the Eastland, and that is noteworthy. And what's particularly poignant about this story is that Gusty and I'm guessing that she went by that name because I too had a great aunt, gusty and Gusty and her granddaughter whose name was Elizabeth Rackow. They both got on the Eastland on their way to the Western Electric Company picnic Gusty's daughter Minnie and her son-in-law, daniel Quinn, and their daughter Loretta. They were supposed to be on the Eastland as well, but Daniel and his wife got into some kind of disagreement and they left and they went back home that saved their lives. Gusty was from Germany and she was a widow at that time. She was also a member of First St John Lutheran Church.
Speaker 1:
She and her husband. They didn't immigrate together, at least I don't think they did. They immigrated to Chicago from Prussia. That's what's on the census forms in 1872. It's pretty early and they were always associated with First St John Lutheran Church. I'm reading this from their marriage record, which was from First St John Lutheran Church. They were married July 26, 1874. Her husband's name was Johann Friedrich Wies and he was born in 1849 in what looks like Waldorfka, west Prussia, and her full name was Maria Augusta Luisa Schwan. It looks like it's S-C-H-W-A-H-N. She was born on the 20th of January 1850, and she was born in Lümbrow Hinta, pomerania. So again, they were both from what is now Poland, but what was considered Prussia back then, and the 1880 census where he was listed as working for a liquor store and by the 1900 census he was working as some type of engineer. But it doesn't say where he was working.
Speaker 1:
But there's more backstory to this family's overall story the grandmother, gusty, and her little granddaughter, elizabeth Rackow. Elizabeth Rackow was eight years old when she died. However, where was Elizabeth's mother, who would have been Gusty's and Johann's daughter. Elizabeth's mother, who was also called Elizabeth, married Albert Rackow in 1906, in March 1915. So that's just a few months before the Eastland disaster. Elizabeth the mother died, leaving her little girl half an orphan, and I don't know if she was being raised by her dad or what the circumstance was, but she was with her grandmother on the day of the Eastland disaster.
Speaker 1:
With this story there are layers of sadness and sorrow that surround it and personally, although I've done so many of these stories by now, I never get used to it and it is still quite jarring and painful to read what happened to these people. Yet they did leave us some messages in the forms of these obituaries and census records and sometimes even magazine or newspaper articles. And to that end, I realize I'll never know the entirety of everyone's life who I've profiled so far, but at least if I can share a small slice of their story, in a way they continue to live, they won't be lost to the passage of time. So a little bit about First St John Lutheran Church. This also began as a small school building on Noble and Cornell, which is now called Fry Streets in Chicago, and the church moved around as the population grew. The church was closed in the 1970s and has been redeveloped into nine condominiums with the original exteriors intact and, in terms of Lutheran churches, this is the fourth congregation in Chicago.
Speaker 1:
By age, it was located in the northwest of the city, far away. The school stood in the middle of cornfields, there was no trace of roads and nothing else going on, and it was really out in the wilderness at that point. So basically, they were charting new territory when they created this church and this school. What is interesting to learn is that a lot of these churches they don't start off as churches, they start off as schools, and the churches are added later and education is highly valued in the Lutheran church. To state the obvious, now I want to introduce you to the next family, all of whom died on the Eastland and all of whom are buried at Concordia Cemetery in Forest Park. Intro.
Speaker 1:
Introducing the Rousseau family or they might be Rousseau. I have relatives with that name as well, and no, I don't think I'm related to these people. But I've learned to never say never, as so many people did. That day they boarded the SS Eastland getting ready for the picnic and, unbeknownst to them, they would not get off that ship alive. Right now I'm going to read their obituary from the Chicago Tribune. Intro.
Speaker 1:
Rousseau, william, 36 years old. Mrs Mamie Rousseau, 36 years old. William Jr, 4 years old. Ruth, 14 years old. Father, mother and two children, constituting entire family united in death by the Eastland disaster. The bodies were all recovered and taken to family residence, 5842 West Walton Street. Funeral services were held Friday at 3 pm from German Golgotha Church, rice and Central Avenue internment at Concordia. Mr Rousseau had been in the employ of Western Electric Company for 20 years as foreman INTRO.
Speaker 1:
Here's the thing that got to me as I was reading this story, and it wasn't just about an entire family getting wiped out by this thing Golgotha or I've heard it pronounced several different ways throughout my life gogotha, but Golgotha seems to be the way that people want to pronounce it now. That is the location where Jesus faced crucifixion, and it's also known as the place of the skull. More commonly, you know it is Calvary, but this is one of those older terms that I haven't heard in years. But it's interesting to face it again. The church named for a site of profound sacrifice and loss hosted the final farewell of the Rousseau family, whose lives were claimed by the water. The juxtaposition of the church's name against the backdrop of this tragedy offers a stark meditation on life's unpredictability. William, mamie, young William Jr and Ruth Rousseau, in their unity through life and death, remind everyone of life's fragile balance. So, in terms of Golgotha Lutheran Church why this name? I don't know, but the congregation was founded in 1910 when a group of Lutherans living in West Inglewood that's where the church is located resolved to form a new parish, and they also, of course, formed a school, as is custom.
Speaker 1:
So that's a little bit about the background of Golgotha, and next week I'll probably have a few more stories for you from the various Lutheran churches of that time. And also, next weekend is the beginning of Rousseau Tech, and I hope that you will either join online or maybe, if you can attend, in person, that's great too. In the meantime, have a good week and thanks for joining me on this journey, and I'm going to close this episode in the most Lutheran way that I know. Hey, that's it for this episode and thanks for coming along for the ride. Please subscribe or follow so you can keep up with all the episodes, and for more information, please go to my website, that's wwwflowerintherevercom. I hope you'll consider buying my book, available as audiobook, ebook, paperback and hardcover, because I still owe people money, and that's my running joke. But the one thing I'm serious about is that this podcast and my book are dedicated to the memory of all who experienced the Eastland disaster of 1915. Goodbye for now.